


and now he's so devoid of color

by zaboraviti



Series: Dancing on the Edge [4]
Category: Victoria (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending kinda, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-20
Updated: 2017-06-20
Packaged: 2018-11-15 06:30:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11225262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zaboraviti/pseuds/zaboraviti
Summary: Mama keeps saying that the concept of soulmates is improper. And the concept of color is nothing but a pathetic excuse for those who puts lust and selfish pleasure above propriety. Life within the black and white spectrum is simple and safe. People are born like this, so it must be God’s will.





	and now he's so devoid of color

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [And now he's so devoid of color](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/300438) by Lady-in-waiting-ss. 



> Vicbourne in a soulmates AU where people see the world in black and white until they reunite with their soulmate.

_1837-1848_

The shiny mirror in the carved frame reflects her dull face. The darkness of her hair and her mourning gown are in sharp contrast to the pale skin and eyes. Victoria comes so close to the polished surface that her hot breath fogs up the spot in front of her small upturned nose.

This is a completely pointless endeavor. She can look and look but her eyes stay the same, gray and inexpressive. Like everything else in this world. Victoria has been told that her father had light blue eyes. The trouble is that her young mind cannot comprehend the very concept of color. How do you explain to a blind person what flowers look like?

Mama sneaks up on her from behind, leaving a bleak emotionless kiss on her bleak cheek. Victoria has no idea what color feels like but she knows, she knows for a fact that the neutrality of her life will soon drive her to insanity.

She has an odd… feeling. She is the Queen now. Today and always.

The fine lace of the cuffs is white and pure as snow, her gown is deep shade of black. Victoria likes how she looks at this moment, because she knows exactly that she has not been dressed in something ridiculous. Black is always black. None of these important statesmen will judge her. At least not based on her appearance.

The baroness is waiting at the top of the stairs. Lehzen smiles wearily but proudly. The very image of her, her figure is so dear, so full of warm shades and soft halftones.

The lips of the dearest governess whisper words of warning. Worried wrinkles lay gray shadows in the corners of her eyes. Victoria cannot assuage her doubts, she cannot color this world for herself or for her lonely friend. She can however exude confidence. It’s slightly artificial but overflowing with stubborn force. It doesn’t bring particular brightness into the world but gives it a faint light of hope. Hope for a change.

The familiar black and white of the Kensington walls. The Queen’s favorite dolls are little white puffs against the Coventry gray of the settee. Flower bouquets, bleak in their plainness, almost hidden from view on the edges of the chest of drawers by the far wall. So little light in this room, with its drapes thick and heavy and the sky outside pearly slate, month in month out.

The weightless mist-like tulle slides softly under Victoria’s fingers. The thud of hoofs is growing ever more distinct, the visitor’s silhouette already visible from the palace. She is curious about all things new, and the approaching man is an intriguing promise to her curiosity.

In the courtyard, the Prime Minister dismounts effortlessly and nonchalantly hands the reins to the groom who has rushed to his side. The horse’s flank glistens in the dim daylight, and Victoria wonders what color it is, because it’s obviously neither black nor white.

But the fleeting thought retreats when the Queen’s attention is drawn to the figures standing at the foot of the steps. They stand there like two toy soldiers, talking. Two inscrutable men. She doesn’t know one of them yet and the other she knows all too well. Victoria will never understand why Sir John Conroy does his best to paint her life with thundercloud gray.

Perhaps she is not meant to understand Lord Melbourne either. Her insides are in tight knots as she ponders the prospects of expanding her environment to another scoundrel who will impose his will on her. Be it as it may, Melbourne does not seem inclined to have long conversations with Conroy.

Victoria steps back into the shadowy parlor.

Lehzen floats back into the room thirty seconds later with a soft rustle of taffeta. The wrinkles of distrust are still there, the air is pulsating with tension. The baroness’s delicate figure is brimming with energy and passion, with the desire to protect her little Drina.

But she is tired of being protected, wrapped in this solid cocoon of isolation. She is a bird in the cage covered with a scarf — peaceful and safe and suffocating.

The wrinkles cut deeper, once Victoria refuses all support. She does feel bad for the woman whom she is used to see s almost a mother figure. But there are things one cannot be prepared for. You have to keep going forward and hope there is color at the end of the road. Or let something new take a step toward you.

He has a truly astonishing face. Clean, chiseled features, so expressive, even to her eyes — incapable as they are of seeing the world’s colors in their entirety. His whole figure seems cut from marble by skillful fingers of a Renaissance master but any thought of his resemblance to a statue evaporates from her mind almost immediately. This restless force inside him, vibrant and vehement, concealed under the mask of gentlemanly propriety, is shining through as he moves toward her.

It doesn’t take her long to understand, not fully but rather intuitively, what Lehzen meant. Melbourne is like a dormant volcano, full of passion and crushing energy but rendered inactive by time and elements.

He--

_touches her._

And the world explodes around her. The world is shattered into millions of fragments, flaring up in pure white light. Her eyes are burning, as though pierced with thousands of sharp needles. Victoria squeezes them shut, sets her jaws, swallowing a cry. Her palm stings where his lips touched it. It happens so quickly, within the timeframe of usual conventionalities of salutation. But he doesn’t let go. Melbourne’s hand is still holding the tips of her fingers.

She opens her eyes and feels them prickle with hot tears.

The world has exploded, the world is upside down. The world is different. Dazzling, bright, incredible. It's as if her head is about to burst with all the information that has come crashing down on her. She struggles to find names for the new impressions, new feelings but instinct tells her that all of this is — color.

He is still kneeling before her, still holding on to her fingers, gently, tentatively. Victoria ventures to look down and meets Melbourne’s gaze. His eyes are a nice shade but there are so many ghosts of the black and white world inside.

Suddenly, both realize _what_ it means.

He jerks away his hand. The world fades to gray.

Her tears have already dried — they never even reached the grey blush on the white cheek.

He is the first to speak, not a single faltering note in his voice. The Prime Minister certainly doesn’t lack composure.

Victoria pulls herself together and answers him. She is brisk, although she babbles a little.

Mama keeps saying that the concept of soulmates is improper. And the concept of color is nothing but a pathetic excuse for those who puts lust and selfish pleasure above propriety. Life within the black and white spectrum is simple and safe. People are born like this, so it must be God’s will.

They will never discuss it. They might have imagined it; it might have been only a flight of fancy. Beautiful but impossible.

It is impossible that they-- that _he_ and _she_ should be soulmates.

And even if they were… who would allow them to have this?

   
***

He thanks the higher powers through each of the following years. For giving them this time, this place, where etiquette is above common sense, where her hands are almost always covered with gloves and he basically has no right to touch her.

He would have gone mad otherwise.

Melbourne feels his eyes sting and the world swims in a pinkish haze woven by the warm glow of candles.

“I want to dance with you!”

The very proximity of her, her breath on his skin fills his world with color. It’s dim and as though powdered with ash but it’s there.

Even the black and white world is different now, breathing with new life, full of her blazing trace, her confidence, her willfulness and grandeur.

And it all pales in comparison with what it does to his heart.

It frightens him even more than all the blinding stunning visions of that first day. His heart speaks loudly, its pounding is deafening and rapid, almost painfully so. His heart, this old fool, never stops talking, saying again and again that he needs Victoria, that — and this is what frightens him the most — _she is destined for him_.

What a cruel joke of fate, giving her to him now that his sunset days are upon him. Having his heart torn apart first, the naïve expectations of this persistent seeker crushed again and again, only to beckon him in the end with true yet impossible happiness.

The universe sent him Victoria, who is tiny, amusing and surprising every day, with eyes full of endless devotion.

_Her eyes are amazing, bright and shiny, this unimaginable shade of blue, cold but full of life. Melbourne saw those eyes for no longer than three seconds, yet his memory saved them for keeping, no matter how hard he tries to forget._

She is so attached to him that he could easily go mad if he attempted to think about it. Melbourne keeps telling himself that Victoria lives under the veil of a beautiful dream. Soulmates is merely a fairytale. Hadn’t she gotten it into her head that they share a special bond, it wouldn’t even occur to her to drink in an old man’s words.

He is lying to himself. This much is obvious. An unstoppable force draws Melbourne to Victoria, tearing down all reason and good judgment. Departing from the palace in the evening, he tells himself that he is happy to leave her, that he is worn out, that this is more than he can handle at his age.

And he races his horse back in the morning, paying no mind to the animal’s well-being, driven solely by the thought of her lips uttering _Lord M_ so easily, so sweetly.

William can control himself. He has always been good at self-restraint. No one can ever say that it takes him great effort not to touch her.

So when his warm fingers press against Victoria’s back, he is not fully aware of what is happening. It’s only several seconds later that Melbourne realizes that his eyes sting a little and that the color of her dark iridescent gown is strikingly similar to that of his absurdly bright waistcoat.

Melbourne withdraws his hand, but not before he beholds the Queen’s quick thirsty glance. This is the look Victoria has when she reads the contents of her dispatch boxes. It is unlikely that she finds him more captivating than reports and dispatches. It is unlikely that something more… exciting flashed in the whirlpools of these eyes, the eyes that turn out to be the color of the morning sky.

  
***

The foliage of the trees is a similar shade to his skin, the grass — to his eyes.

The clouds scurrying across the sky are the same color as the lace on her neckline.

Her hands are cold. As cold as this autumn day shot through with first squalls. His gloves fail him this time, their delicate texture allowing him to feel her skin easily. His fingers are tingling, but there is a painful pull in his chest.

They can see colors, they can see the world, so fully for the first time in their lives. Still, they do not take the opportunity to appreciate the beautiful harmony of the colors of nature.

The rooks with their black feathers. She is sick of black. There is no attractive austerity to it any longer, black is only a symbol of inevitability now.

“When you give your heart, it will be without hesitation.”

This is a lie. In a world where everything is just and fair, those would have been the right words to say. Not here. In that world, it would have been possible for her heart to have the right to choose.

“I think you have it already.”

This is truth. Simple and obvious. Carefully harbored. Harsh. Impossible.

They will not be allowed to have this. People don’t give a damn about the will of the Universe. They make up their own rules to hide how utterly miserable most of them are.

The accursed black and white world comes back, choking William. This is wrong, this is unsound — to lose Victoria’s presence. She alone makes him complete. She alone makes him alive.

 

***

Golden. It’s deep and dark, like black, but much more pleasant. She likes the green of his eyes, still as light as on that day in Brocket Hall.

She is all in white. The bride of inevitability. What is the use of bright colors if you cannot see them?

White, black, gray. Simple and safe. Like Albert. Like her husband.

“I will never forget.”

It’s not something that can be forgotten. It’s not something that can be repeated. They had these moments but you can’t always get what you want, can you?

“May I kiss the bride?” Melbourne asks, only half in jest.

He sees the permission in her cerulean eyes and it’s like walking a very thin line.

“Goodbye, Lord M.”

Her cheek tingles for a few more days and the world greets her with pastel shades.

This magic stays with him only until the morning of the following day. It’s all too obvious.

Three colors of inevitability plunge them into reality where they are never to touch each other again.

Perhaps next time.

 

***

_1939_

The club freezes in the anticipation of cheering that will follow once Victoria lets go of the final key. Harriet draws out another couple of notes in complete silence, languidly leaning against the back of the grand piano. Both are wearing black shiny dresses, two perfect ink notes on the stage.

The room is drowning in the roar of applause. Victoria stands to join Harriet for the curtain call. Her graceful figure in the narrow low-cut dress elicits a few whistles from the audience. Nothing too pushy — this is after all a decent establishment, and getting drunk senseless would cost one a pretty penny. And of course, very few people can beat Ernest when it gets to whistling.

Victoria laughs light-heartedly, watching the nephew of New York City’s mayor, so nice, so scathingly ironic and unembarrassable in daylight, clap his hands like an ordinary excited boy.

Harriet looks at him slantways, jerks up her nose to the ceiling and starts her proud march along the edge of the stage to the stairs. Victoria follows her, knowing that it won’t be ten minutes before her friend whirrs off through the back door arm in arm with her loud suitor. These two will probably be married by the end of the year but until then keeping up appearances is everything.

Girls working in The Court don’t date their clients. Lord M repeated that twice when he hired them. It clearly boggled his mind why two English girls of excellent education and unthinkable pedigree would need a job at his establishment, the place that all of New York City, with the probable exception of local rags, describes as a “criminal speakeasy”. Reporters didn’t want any trouble.

Unlike Victoria, who packed two suitcases and three hatboxes, grabbed Harriet, who was just as bored in the stuck-up company of English blue-blood deadbeats, and made a dash for the Big Apple on the first steamer before their relations stirred up all of Britain.

It was the best decision they had ever made. Breathing in the polluted air, feeing the wind from the Atlantic on your skin in the morning was so much better than the suffocating smell of antiquities in their family homes or the dampness of ubiquitous rain and fog.

New York is a city for runaways. Harriet says it’s rather gray but Victoria knows she is not being completely and exactly sincere when she says that because Harriet doesn’t want to upset her. Victoria is sure that Broadway glows with millions of inconceivable colors, it can’t be otherwise. Even movies have color now…

“I’ve got the tickets!” Ernst announces triumphantly from the doorway of their dressing room.

He smiles his Cheshire Cat smile and you can’t help smiling back.

The papers praised Gone with the Wind so much that they ran out of expressive means of the English language in the first week. Months had flown by but the young women still read about “the incredible texture of costumes, brilliant work of set designers and remarkable acting of Miss Leigh and Mister Gable” almost every day. Sure, Victoria could appreciate the latter but the realization that she would miss half the fun discouraged her from seeing it altogether.

Harriet sticks her curly head from behind the Chinese silk screen with painted cranes.

“For a third time?” the singer smiles, her tone of voice highly skeptical nevertheless.

“Well, you like it so much,” the young man responds with a childlike delight. “Also, I insist that I am much better-looking than this Clark, so we will watch it again and again until you admit it.”

He winks at Victoria, ignoring the roll of Harriet’s eyes. Victoria keeps a tactful silence, although it is more than obvious that Ernest has grown his well-groomed mustache for a reason.

Harriet puts on her coat, one foot in a shoe, while Ernest is putting a hat on her head. An English aristocrat and the son of a German diplomat driven by a subtle but palpable threat hanging over his home country. New York is a place for runaways and these two who were on the run for different reasons found each other in this city, literally painting each other’s world with new colors.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come with us?” Harriet thinks of her at the last minute, already on the doorstep.

“Right, come on, come with us, just this once. I’ll get a ticket for you even if I have to dig the ground for it, and if I fail, I’ll just wait for you two in the lobby--”

“No, thanks,” Victoria shakes her head. “You know I love the book too much to let anything ruin the images in my head. Cinema is overrated… But you two go ahead and have fun!” she concludes with a laugh.

Her friends leave, already consumed with each other.

Victoria sighs. She was lying, she is lying to herself, desperately so. She adores cinema. Or she used to when she was much younger, just a small girl. It was black and white like her life but a much more joyous and magical place. Victoria liked to imagine herself the female lead in one of those movies, a graceful confident diva with perfectly styled hair, who always finds her love. Movies gave her the illusion that life in grayscale is a norm, a price to pay for a nice plot, not just a symbol of predetermined loneliness.

One foot on the seat of a chair, about to roll down her thin black stocking, Victoria realizes she is being watched. She looks up and her frightened eyes meet those of William Lamb, also known as Lord M. It has never occurred to her to find out the meaning of that mysterious M but Alfred the bartender always says it’s M as in “melancholy” , which is an obvious truth or at least a half-truth.

He doesn’t look melancholic right now. If anything, he looks surprised and perhaps a little embarrassed, although it’s more than an odd reaction for the owner of the establishment that in the eyes of society is almost as respectable as a brothel.

“Mr Lamb--” Victoria tugs down her skirt, putting her foot back on the floor, knowing how silly she must look with her left foot in a stocking and her right one bare.

“Erm--” the gangster’s voice, pleasantly hoarse with a clear Welsh accent, comes out somewhat strangled. “My apologies, Miss Kent, but the door was open and I thought I could come in. I wanted to discuss the repertoire for the Sunday night… You should really lock the door, anyone can just waltz in here,” he says, eyeing her sternly from under the thick eyebrows.

Taken aback and flustered, she feels her cheeks glow. They have only talked a couple of times since she started playing here, and yet it was so oddly important to her, his approval.

“I do always lock up, Harriet and Ernest haven't pushed the door all the way down when they were leaving--”

“I beg your pardon?”

Bugger. She messed up. She messed up badly. She failed her friends and will probably be out on the street for covering for them. For some reason though, William doesn’t look outraged, a small smirk playing on his lips.

“And where exactly did they go?” he asks, tilting his head, measuring Victoria with a hard stare like a professor would a student in trouble.

She suddenly feels utterly hurt and frustrated. He is her employer but he has no right at all to look at her with such condescension.

“To the movies,” she raps out. “To see _Gone with the Wind_. For a third time. Which is nobody’s business but their own.”

Her tone is tinged with thinly veiled annoyance now. Victoria shakes her shiny hair-sprayed locks and puts her left foot back on the seat of the chair without hesitation. She quickly unfastens the garter and rolls down the stocking with some kind of stubborn dare.

If he thinks her a little girl, he has never been more wrong.

“Well, why didn’t you go with them?” Lord M asks and she hears a sneer in his voice.

He is laughing, he is mocking her — another reason why Victoria didn’t think twice about leaving for the States. _Little Drina, Princess Vic, hopefully, we can marry her off at a profit, what other use could she possibly be?_

“I don’t like cinema,” she says curtly with a nervous twitch of her shoulders.

His silence lasts a little longer this time as he watches Victoria skitter about the tiny dressing room like a small hurricane, gathering hairpins and scattered stage outfits.

“Right. What’s there to like? We have enough black and white drama in our black and white life.”

She stops in her tracks, standing by the mirror. Before he had appeared, Victoria changed into a plain dark dress with a row of tiny buttons running down the bodice. The shop girl mentioned that the fabric was bottle-green. Ha! As if it meant anything to Victoria. Her reflection in the mirror is bleak, all of her exterior nothing but shades of gray. She has always wondered if she is the only one bothered by living in a two-color world and this is the first time she hears someone admit so straightforwardly how flawed and deficient this existence is.

A sigh comes from the doorway. Victoria casts a glance at Mr. Lamb in the mirror. His thin lips are pressed together into an almost invisible line.

“Rules are rules. I’m sorry but your friend will be fired,” William says meeting her eyes in the mirror.

“But it’s cruel!” she cries out, turning on her heels.

“It’s the right thing to do,” he says calmly, defensively even.

“What did they do wrong?” Victoria lashes out as she darts up close to him, almost too close.

“Permission for one is permission for all, this is what people will think. Clients will get too brazen, they will start harassing singers and waitresses. And that includes you, Miss Kent. It’s quite possible.”

“But they love each other!”

“It’s business. And business in this city is much more important than anyone’s feelings. Your friend’s affair is no exception.”

He will not waver. His ex-wife is a striking example of what happens when you forget all sense and good judgment. He is all too aware of the consequences. As the echo of his last phrase dies in the air, William turns back, about to dive into the shadows of the hallway.

“But they are soulmates!”

He wants to turn around and give a good shake to this naïve English lady, whose tongue is as quick as her musician’s fingers.

But before Lord M has a chance to utter a single word, those fingers clutch his rough palm.

When he was five he stuck his fingers in a power socket. It felt the same. His head is ringing, his eyes are burning, and he jerks away his hands to blindly grasp her shoulders. Not to shake her — to protect her. It’s a gas explosion or something like it…

The sting in his eyes finally gone, Lamb frantically looks around, holding Victoria protectively to his chest. She is thrashing in his bear hug, too tight from fear. Thrashing and cursing like a drunken sailor. Some lady!

He loosens his grip and Victoria’s fire abates a little. No one is screaming, there is no smell of smoke or gas. In fact, there is no smell at all, only the delectable fragrance of her perfume. Spicy peach. To match her golden skin.

Bottle green glass. The color of her dress. The color of his eyes in the weak bulb light illuminating this nook in the back of the club. She gets there faster.

“So this is what it’s like,” she mutters in a morning-raspy voice.

 _So this is what it’s like_. Her words echo through him a million times until they finally reach his disoriented mind. This is… so beautiful. This dusty dressing room. The lights of the building across the street visible through the small window. Victoria.

Her lips are such a delicate color, and of course he has no idea what they call it but he will make sure to find out, and if he fails he will come up with his own name for it. But there is no name he could give to these eyes…

“Well then?” Victoria says with a small frown. “Can Harriet stay?”

William instantly realizes _what_ all of it means.

He’s been fooled. Taken for a ride. Caught in the trap of his own rules. What should he do now? Let it all crush and burn!

“She can,” Lord M nods. “Just tell her and her Ernest to keep it low in the club, yeah?” he grumbles.

Victoria laughs; it’s a clear and melodic sound echoing the tunes she plays every night on the club stage. And he always comes to listen…

“Oh, they excel at that. You hadn’t had a clue before I opened my big mouth, had you?”

“She can stay,” he adds suddenly. “On one condition.”

Victoria tilts her head and gives him a searching glance, mirroring the one he gave her a few minutes earlier, a silent question in the captivating eyes.

“You, Miss Kent, are to accompany me to the movies. Tomorrow.”

“You don’t like cinema.”

“I’m willing to give it another chance. Perhaps, through you, I might come to like it in the future.”

She can only nod, hiding her too obviously pleased smile.

Lord M leaves and takes the colorful world with him. But only for a while. Harriet told her how people keep this feeling of color… It’s too early for her but she won’t let her chances pass her by. And it’s not really about color.

 

***

She holds his hand through the entire screening. Truth be told, she doesn’t let go of his hand all evening.

The movie turns out to be quite entertaining. But it’s much more fascinating to watch Victoria. How she parts her lips slightly during particularly exciting scenes. How she squints her eyes staring at the screen, smiling, more than ever looking like a little girl. Well, truth be told again, he has never seen her as a little girl. He knows she was brave enough to escape a depressing life with rather unpleasant relations. He knows she practices almost till her fingers bleed and makes Harriet work as hard, almost to the detriment to the singer’s vocal cords. She has diabolic perseverance and fortitude that cannot be learned.

Even sober patrons of the club whistle at her. He knows why. Her natural femininity combined with a touch of innocence and inexperience drives many men crazy. Yet William remembers her first week — her hurling a heavy cocktail shaker into some cheeky boor who got too handsy and himself suddenly unable to think of her as a little girl in a grown woman’s body like most people did. After all, it would have made finding her breathtakingly sexy very odd.

The world on the screen goes up in flames but he can’t stop staring at Victoria. The protagonists can burn to ashes with Atlanta for all he cares. What is some artificial attraction between some other people when he holds the hand of the one woman made for him?

William can’t bite back an amazed chuckle, thinking how quickly he has become so melodramatic, how it only took his heart a couple of days to thaw.

Victoria squeezes his palm, even though the scene on the screen is nothing particularly exciting. And it excites him.

 

***

“Did you like it?” Victoria asks as they leave the theater, letting the cool evening breeze kiss their cheeks.

She is not cold in her long-sleeved dress on this fine May night. Yet she clings to him, feeling a bit drunk on the heat of his body and on the world that opens itself to her while they are together.

“It’s quite spectacular. Beautifully filmed,” William says briskly, with a smirk. “But is it worth seeing three times as your friends evidently believe?” he adds, looking at her guiltily, as if apologizing for his lack of understanding.

“The official version of their mission is to establish who is more handsome, Ernest or Clark Gable. My version is that they just love the back rows and the dark,” Victoria snickers.

“Well, you can take away their excuse now. You have seen the movie. You can settle this argument and tell them who is better looking,” he says playfully, tempering a sheepish grin that is tugging on the corners of his mouth, screaming to get out.

She gets very quiet, gazing at him and not watching her step. He leads her by the arm, trying to keep his eyes ahead. The spot where her hand touches the skin of his wrist above the watch is tingling sweetly.

“You are. You are better looking.”

And he stumbles, although he has been watching his step. Victoria sounds so earnest, without a trace of joke or idle flirting in her voice. He could bet she’s wrong but her tone is so serious, her voice so quiet that he cannot help but believe her.

He has a bad feeling about this. He feels like they have been through this before. Flying close to the sun only to fall to flaming pieces.

But she is his soulmate, and who the hell is he to fight this bond?

The kiss is scorching. He feels like he has been waiting for this much longer than it should be natural. Specks of light flash before his eyes like fireworks, only these are finally full of countless sparkling colors he can’t even name and not just a scattering of white stars.

But it’s not really about that, is it? It’s about this feeling in your chest, as if you were dead or missing some important part of your body. The feeling of home, happiness, all-consuming warmth.

There has never been so many colors in the night.

It’s too good to be true.

 

_1940_

She wakes up in the middle of the night to the pain wringing her chest. It’s pitch dark, and Victoria is gasping for air, she wants to scream but her voice is gone, and all she can do is open her mouth without making a sound.

And then, all of a sudden, it stops. She has no strength to turn on the light, to call Harriet who sleeps in the next room. Victoria sinks into oblivion, nothing but darkness around her.

 

***

Her head is buzzing, her mouth feels so dry as if she hasn’t had a drop of water for a whole day. Her eyelids are leaden. It takes an effort to unglue them.

Harriet’s shaking frame is hanging over her, her elbows on the edge of the bed, eyes shining with tears. She holds a crumpled newspaper sheet in one hand, shaking Victoria’s shoulder. A gray paper with black letters. A gray face framed in black hair.

A black and white world. A black and white page with an enormous headline.

 _“PRIME MINISTER” OF NEW YORK MOB KILLED IN FIREFIGHT_  
_A stray bullet has ended the days of truce between the city gangsters._

They say third time’s a charm.

 

***

She runs into him hard, plowing headfirst into a broad chest. Victoria looks up, knowing it couldn’t have been otherwise.

“Are you alright, ma’am?”

Well isn’t this fucking great. For a week, she has been snorting rather judgmentally at her gossip-gathering girlfriends, going to her studio every morning dressed for an audience with the Queen of England. And now she just bumps into her hot new neighbor in the snack food aisle at three in the morning. No make-up, a coat over the paint-stained sweats — and trainers, which means she is two heads shorter than said hot new neighbor.

“I’m fine, thanks,” Victoria nods, putting on her best confident expression, which is quite funny considering how ridiculous she looks.

Then again, he doesn’t look much better, wearing a jacket over pajamas, one self-conscious hand holding a bottle of beer behind his back.

“You do know these are bad for you, right?” he flashes her a friendly smile, nodding at the bags of chips in her hands. “I’ve been told they are terrible unnatural color.”

“Are you from the Salvation Army?” she snorts.

The man raises his eyebrows, as if remembering something, and Victoria realizes that he is staring at her. Almost without blinking.

“William. William Lamb. I think I’m your new neighbor--”

He holds out his broad palm. Just like that.

“--from the loft with the conservatory. Victoria. Victoria Kent.”

Their hands touch.

 

***

The sun is trailing its bright yellow fingers across the warm beige walls, the reflected light from the iridescent crystals of the futuristic-looking chandelier dancing on the blazing sunflower petals in the vase.

The brush jolts in her hand, leaving splashes of water on the paper, and Victoria laughs at this feverish urgency of hers.

She should really calm down. It’s not going anywhere. _He_ is not going anywhere.

She wants to paint everything, all at once, in generous broad watercolor strokes across the paper, the pile of graphite pencil drawings lying abandoned in the corner. Her therapist believes her to be depressed, but the truth is Victoria didn’t want to use colors without seeing them, didn’t want to mangle the harmony of the world — and she would have had to, had she painted almost blindly. Until this morning.

Every other minute, Victoria tears her eyes off the paper to look at the man in her bed. The man she only met yesterday, the man she has known her entire life. Longer than her entire life.

She needs to paint him. More than once. The key is to find the right colors.

 


End file.
